Perhaps people should wait until the facts emerge before posting more stories filled with inaccurate information.
"There were a number of erroneous trades," said NYSE spokesman Rich Adamonis."Our guys just told me Nasdaq is investigating the erroneous trades. What happened today in P&G for instance, the bad print was on Nasdaq, not here," he said, referring to a 37 percent plunge in Procter & Gamble Co.
The Nasdaq said it is investigating the plunge.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQKb...
And more - including canceled trades of Accenture:
Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said it’s investigating potentially erroneous trades involving multiple securities between 2:40 p.m. and 3 p.m. New York time, when the U.S. stock market tumbled.
Trades in Accenture Plc that drove the second-largest technology consulting company’s stock price down more than 99 percent to a penny were canceled by the CBOE Stock Exchange, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
A total of 19 trades of 100 shares each were executed at 1 cent in seven seconds from 2:47 p.m. to 2:48 p.m. in New York, a minute after the Dow average plunged by the most since the market crash of 1987, the data showed.
Eighteen of the trades were executed on the CBOE Stock Exchange and were canceled. The first trade that sent Accenture to a penny was executed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. That transaction has yet to be canceled, the data showed.
It's like being at a car auction with a robot auctioneer and putting in a one-penny starting bid, and then the robot's sensors malfunction so he can't see any more bids. He'll declare you the auction winner, but that result doesn't reflect the car's actual value and will almost definitely be canceled.
Unless the value of the car is defined as whatever someone on NYSE or NASDAQ is willing to pay for it.
As the result of this there were some losers and some winners. Losers will want the trades reversed, winners won't. Reversal of trades could start a dangerous trend. Who gets to decide which trades get reversed? I wonder if many HFT firms will start to incorporate such kind of behavior into their trading model, so we'll see more of these "accidents" in the future.
Last I heard, the Nasdaq was going to cancel any trades that were during the glitchy time window and were more than 60% away from a baseline price (an amount people were "willing to pay for it" when the system wasn't glitching). I don't know how they came up with the number, nor how deeply the SEC and other agencies were involved in setting it. There will still be plenty of winners and losers coming out of this, just not the ones who thought they bought or sold Accenture at a penny.
I'm not saying this is a "good" fix, but it is well within the Nasdaq's authority.
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325574 - notes that broken trades are fairly common, and that they're usually quickly mediated
No, we'll see less of these trades. Because the next guy will set up "buy everything at $ 0.02", so that the $ 0.01 guys don't get everything. Of course they anticipate each other, and will bid each other up to sensible prices.
Ok, we disallow 0.01% of price,penny bids. However, should 10% of price bid orders be left standing, how about 20%, 50%? Certainly 75% of price bids should be honored?
I am afraid we might seeing these kind of things more often.
IS THIS NOT WHY YOU ARE HERE?
Personally I checked only to see everyones noodles flailing.
I believe he made clear what he expects on this forum.